book review | Human+ — smartdust, spooks, psychics, and transhumans

Each artificial neuron would communicate with the brain via electrical signals and would be able to wirelessly interface with external hardware, enabling brain-computer networking.Once such networking was established, David noted with interest, Internet telephony could be quite simply deployed. Synthetic telepathy, in other words. …

Such advanced technology may be developed in a couple of decades, transforming us into a “telepathic” species. But what if we already have “natural” psychic abilities, emergent properties of quantum-entangled neurons, waiting to be unlocked by appropriate training?

Or both? Can transhumanist human enhancement and the paranormal abilities co-exist? Or are they on an inescapable collision course?

These are some of the questions that U.K.-based writer and journalist Martin Higgins sets out to explore in his novel Human+, a just-published science-fiction page-turner inspired by of futures studies, psychic spy research, and the transhumanist movement.

David, a Manhattan heroin drug addict, is rehabibiliated by Dr. Wharton, a psychiatrist with a spooky past, and finds himself in a new-agey program to develop his latent remote-viewing psychic powers. Dr. Wharton and his staff are somehow associated with Future Proof, a Soho futures-studies consultancy. David becomes David McKinley, a highly paid futurist and expert on advanced nanotech and biotech — knowledge that he actually accesses psychically.

Future Proof is funded by billionare venture capitalist Thomas Ames to develop a roadmap for a futuristic nanotech-biotech breakthrough: inhalable “smartdust” — nanobots small enough to pass through the lungs and the blood-brain barrier, and act as neurons — enhancing mood, extending life, and enabling direct networking with the world via wireless brain-computer links.

Their new company, Thetis, plans to accumulate wealth beyond their wildest dreams. But things go awry when David’s instructor and now colleague Lawrence attempts to blow the cover of what appears to be a nefarious scheme to control humanity, linked to the Defense Intelligence Agency’s remote viewing/psychic spy program.

Singularity or Spirituality?

I am persuaded that advanced transhumanist technologies will bring very radical change, someday soon. For example, early technologies similar to Thetis’ smartdust and brain-computer interfaces are already emerging from the research labs. I am less persuaded of naturally occurring psychic abilities and otherworldly realms. But I hope to be wrong, because these things would also be cool — very cool.

If both the Singularity and transcendent psychic abilities are on the horizon, I would totally agree with Dr. Wharton’s dictum: “Who’s to say the two can’t develop together — technology and human potential — perhaps should develop together?”

Human+ has KurzweilAI readers directly in its bullseye. I highly recommend it for its thought-provoking reading pleasure — and I look forward to seeing Human+ the movie.

Giulio Prisco is transhumanism editor for KurzweilAI. He is a science writer, technology expert, futurist, and transhumanist.

The HeartMath people refer to precog as intuition but if you read their three case studies you see they’re really witnessing precog. William Tiller not only provides a scientifically rigorous framework for the existence of psi abilities, he answers the question of Dark Matter/Dark Energy at the same time . . . and in a very elegant manner. Read all of his freely distributed white papers. If you still have doubts after all of this, watch the documentary, The Yogis of Tibet, found here: http://theyogisoftibet.com/. And if you’re still not convinced check out the studies conducted by Herbert Benson and his crew, especially the work of Sara Lazar available here: http://www.nmr.mgh.harvard.edu/~lazar/.

If you’re not convinced after all of that then go back to sleep; I’m sorry I woke you.

“Each artificial neuron would communicate with the brain via electrical signals and would be able to wirelessly interface with external hardware,…”
Perhaps this technology could lead to a sci-fi scenario touched on in the book “2001 A Space Odyssey” (and a story I read way back around 1958): Disembodied brains kept healthy by technology & interfaced with avatars that were sent into dangerous environments. A circumstance fatal to a brain would only damage or destroy the avatar. Another one could replace it and the person (the brain) would be alive and well in another location.

Humans cooperate because of their ultimate helplessness. Who needs cooperation otherwise? Who needs to reproduce? Who needs families? Our interconnectedness is inversely proportional to our personal power. Tread with caution into transhumanism.

Are you sure about what interconnectedness being inversely proportional to our own personal power? Why do you think so?

I think someone who is really good at networking is much more powerful than some lonely person.

Concerning your questions: The need question on an individual level is imho not that important.Those traits etc that lead to reproduction are those that prevail in the long run.That’s why most of us have them.

Also, humans are much weaker and slowly developing than most other large creatures, which means we need to search safety in numbers.

And yeah, some brands of transhumanism come across as pretty collectivist.I dislike them.

This sounds like an interesting science fiction book. But the comments here are going pretty far afield, metaphorically. No doubt “everything” affects everything else … in fact, this is partly the idea behind “weak measurement” mentioned in other articles in this issue. But “cause and effect” is not quite the same as “particles talking.”

I proposed the idea of nanotelepathy in a science fiction story last year called “Sneeze” by my pen name Michael Blade. Its self rewarding to see that others are thinking along the same lines. To be able to make mental phone calls across a enhanced telecommunications infrastructure seems to me to be one of the ways humanity plus is going considering the mobile communication computing trends it only seems natural that after the touch surface, augmented reality, geolocation advances, comes mind interfaces.

I said it, mainly referring to Bri’s comment.If you want to see a “proof” for this claim, you can google Deepak Chopra and see the similarity on their views of unity etc.Then google the interview in which Deepak explains what he thinks science to be (questioning [non-methodically, purely intuitive] + some kind of systematic output).
I do not want to post all that stuff, which would lead to tldr (to long, didn’t).This comment is already too long.

All this however does not mean I have expressed my opinion anymore than asserting these things (unity of everything, you just do not know it, but i feel it) to be in the realm of spirituality (at least as for today).

In my opinion, almost everything is a scientific problem, at least in in the long run.Even the misunderstandings between people concerning simple text messages ;)

There are mountains of scientific evidence for telepathy. Read the book “Entangled Minds” by Dean Radin. The book covers literally a meta analysis of 1000′s of experiments and goes into detail of many of them. Read that cover to cover and your view of there being ” no reproducible experiment evidence” may change…

Thanks Mr. X for the link to the review of Radin’s book. I have the impression that both sides have already decided what the experimental results must be, and interpret the data accordingly.
I did not study the results in detail, but I find Radin’s enthusiasm more productive than the a-priori defeatism of professional akeptics: if we were all skeptics, we would still be in the caves because nobody would ever have ventured out of them.

Are you sure?If we all were like Mr. Radins seems to be (I do not know him, and I don’t like judging others that way) we’d see connections everywhere (just like we hardwired too) arbitraly (as do many people—> naive theories) and still believe in things like early religious animism.

I think one should never have preferences (as far as that is possible), if he seeks the truth.And I do not have an opinion over whether we have these skills or not, I am just quite sure I don’t ^^

I like to use sites like the one I posted in order to get a quick overview of what both sides have to say.Then I decide if I want to get further into it.After all, one/most people has only so much time to read and do what he wants.

I think switching between critical evaluation and motivated creation/conduct is a matter of “training”.

If nature were that strong in this regard, how can one explain that people with better education are generally more skeptic than others?

I think nurture is underestimated, especially since people outside the social sciences tend mostly look at instituational influences, and maybe geography (along the fallacious lines of “you are biased because you live there, therefore I know better”) and income.

Concerning not having preferences:I meant to say that these preferences are a matter of degree and can be partly countered by values like striving for objectivity.

Values and goals, and aiming high, imho are useful for what they make you do (or don’t do) and not necessarely for reaching them.If someone does not even try to be balanced (e.g neither optimistic nor pessimistic, but realistic) he’ll probably be a good deal more subjective, sometimes even unscientific.

Probably the most important reason why spirit should be pursued is that you become part of a whole. Through tech you feel like masters of all you survey. The other way your intrinsically connected. Look at Snooki from American TV. Like so many children from so many time periods she was in run amuck. Now she has had a child and her perspective is changing. It’s not just her anymore. Through self knowledge you become brother, sister,father, mother, to every conceivable thing. You see yourself s part of a whole. Randian philosophy would be more rounded. The center of an infinite circle is an infinite circle. We are one. Whether you know it or not. As you do unto the least of these you do unto your maker.

My comments tend to have that type of influence. Even if it’s a purely scientific article. Transhumanism itself can be totally devoid of religious overtones. Because it is viewed as cheating death people tend to bring in there own religious views. I may comment on the other topics in the book but I typically could write all day about some of these articles so I focus on the things that mean the most to me or that I think should be brought into the debate.

I definitely agree — What I love about Ray Kurzweil and the works of transhumanism is how much sense it makes…when people then start going on about spirits, and psychic powers, that sorts of starts to trivialize everything and make it sound like fantasy stuff

It’s one thing if we are ever applying technology to better our own lives and to eventually fulfill all the promises of religion…it’s another thing to start injecting things for the sake of it. I understand how the Singularity is going to start to seemingly fulfill, well, as much as we can imagine apparently…that shouldn’t be a void to start throwing in every sort of philosophical/fantasy idea you can think of.

I guess what it boils down to is, that ‘religion’ has such a negative connotation here, and I understand that…but it’s too easy to get ahead of yourself, especially if you are really passionate about the Singularity.

I can understand why it wouldn’t seem like a religion…To transhumanists/singularitarians…this is merely the ‘next step’ – but thing is, It’s like to the people of every religion already too…it makes so much sense to them, it supposedly explains the origins of everything, what will happen in the future and how we must prepare ourselves…and the implications of the Singularity, where everyone is endowed with God-like abilities sounds, well, biblical.

Perhaps this is all semantics and nothing more, but people who believe in this stuff need to watch their behavior — to be more modest and humble, especially since the vast majority of people never even heard of this stuff…everybody has their own ideas and everybody wants to be the winner on the other side who gets to say “I told you so”.

We don’t have telepathic abilities, not because it is impossible, but because it is too complex a system to have evolved in a few billion years. If there was proof to the contrary, showing that we do have such abilities, I would agree, but numerous studies have proved it false. What we do have is a powerful brain that can find patterns, predict outcomes, and, most importantly, build computers that can extend our abilities.

I’m inclined to agree…isn’t it all irrelevant in the end anyway when we will be capable of such “superpowers” through the advent of the technologies that are yet to come?

The wish that people are actually imbued with latent potential of such sort always felt like the stuff of fantasy novels then what is actually real…and again, it’s all moot because we will be able to essentially have such abilities, and more, through the tech that is yet to come; especially considering, as you say, that we will be able to vastly extend all our biological capabilities, even mysterious ‘psychic’ potential that we may supposedly have — so we’ll be getting our cake and eating it too.

Human psychic abilities are more than just latent. I agree with Mr bloom in his book The God Problem when he asserts that the particles talk to each other in hidden time. Every particle even empty space with all it’s virtual particles does. This reality is more like the matrix than you can imagine. It’s all an illusion. It’s not turtles all the way down it’s infinity in every comfortable dimension. Just like how suppressing certain brain centers can give you savant abilities. Severing all of them gets you to spirit. In meditation you focus the light of thought back on itself. If you do it right and really observe the observer you go through a period of black. Spirit is just on the other side of that. All is one and one is all. Little sparks of infinity from the infinite. Always have been always will be.